Transactions have long been provided for by databases and transaction-processing systems. Transactions provide a simplified failure model, desirable to application programmers, by grouping together a number of operations into a single atomic operation, i.e., a group of operations of which the results of the individual operations stand or fall together. If just one operation fails, the effects of all operations in the group, regardless of the number of operations associated with the transaction, are “undone” or rolled back. This solidarity among operations is provided with regard to any number of failures, including failures that occur during the process of undoing operations, and eventually the respective transaction-processing system reaches one of two states whereby either all of the operations have been applied or none of the operations have been applied.
Transactional file systems, which define the directory structure for keeping track of files and the path syntax for applications, are now capable of driving transactions deep into an operating system (OS). Accordingly, secure transaction management services on a kernel level is desired.